G.Skarnemark
Nuclear Chemistry, Department of Materials and Surface Chemistry, Chalmers University of Technology, G teborg, Sweden
Solvent extraction and ion exchange methods have found widespread application in small-scale radiochemical separations for production or purification of radioactive tracers as well as for nuclear industry applications such as uranium production, clean-up of nuclear reactor water and reprocessing of nuclear fuels. Solvent extraction processes are also essential for the future concept of partitioning and transmutation. In this chapter the theory of solvent extraction and ion exchange is briefly outlined and some applications are described in more detail.
One of the first reported studies of solvent extraction was in fact also a radio-chemical separation. In 1805, almost a century before radioactivity was discovered Bucholz extracted uranium from a nitric acid solution into ether and back-extracted it into pure water (Bucholz 1805). During the following decades the distribution of neutral compounds between aqueous phases and pure solvents was studied experimentally as well as from a theoretical point of view (Peligot 1842, Berthelot and Jungfleisch 1872, Nernst 1891). Selective extractants for analytical purposes became available for several elements during the first decades of the 20th century. Between 1940 and the early fifties extractants like organophosphorous esters and amines were developed for use in the nuclear fuel cycle. This connection between radiochemistry and solvent extraction chemistry made radiochemists heavily involved in the development of new solvent extraction processes, and eventually solvent extraction became a major separation technique in radiochemistry.
About 150 years ago it was...
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